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ScienceWeek
PHYSICS: ON WOMEN IN PHYSICS
The following points are made by B.L. Whitten et al (Physics Today 2003 September):
1) In 1998, women received about 40% of the bachelor's degrees in mathematics and chemistry, but only 19% of the bachelor's in physics. That underrepresentation worsens at higher levels: The same year, women constituted 13% of physics PhD recipients and 8% of physics faculty members. According to NSF, the community of working PhD-level physicists in 2000 was 84% white and 93% male. What accounts for such stark numbers?
2) A "leaky pipeline" explains part of the problem. Women apparently opt out of physics at every step up the academic ladder. Pacific University physicist Mary Fehrs and Roman Czujko, director of the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics, found that those women who chose not to remain in physics had performed on a par with their male colleagues who stayed in the field. Elaine Seymour and Nancy Hewitt, both sociologists at the University of Colorado at Boulder, confirmed that finding. It implies a loss of talent, which the physics community can ill afford. To investigate the climate for women in graduate physics departments, the American Physical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) began conducting a program of visits to physics departments in 1990. On the basis of those and continuing visits, the com-mittee has recommended changes to make the departments more comfortable for women faculty and students.
3) The biggest leak in the pipeline, though, appears in the college years following high school. If physics departments could leam how to persuade more of the girls who take high-school physics to major in physics in college, they would greatly increase the pool of women who might become professional physicists.
Physics Today http://www.physicstoday.org
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ON WOMEN IN PHYSICS
Forty-nine years old; strong-featured face, brooding eyes, a mass of dark sexy hair she tosses about like a forties movie vamp, the walk seductive and knowing, the mouth sullen and grievance-collecting in repose, then surprisingly girlish in laughter when the eyes fill with a sudden shimmering light. Alma Norovsky is a theoretical physicist at a university renowned for its devotion to the life of the mind. Of her colleagues, Alma says drily: "They're very theoretical. People are always asking me how women are treated here. Women? I answer. They're a theoretical concept."
Divorced four years from the physicist husband she married in graduate school, on her own for the first time in her life, in love with her new independence and happy to be working here, Alma nevertheless sighs. "How do you work in physics, or live among academic liberal men, and not explode all day long every day? Once in a while I'm able to control myself... Last year at a conference I was standing with a group of physicists, all men, and I was introduced to a new member of the group. He said, 'You're the first good-looking physicist I've ever met.' I casually indicated the man standing beside me and said, 'Oh, that's not true. You know Richard here. He's good-looking, and he's a physicist.' They all looked startled, and then some of them nodded their heads appreciatively. I was proud of myself then, but usually it's awful. Still. Always. At every dinner table, in the office, the constant little indications that you don't really exist. You've got to remind them that you're a thinking, working being just like themselves all the time. It's wearing."
Adapted from: Vivian Gornick: Women in Science: Portraits from a World in Transition. Simon & Schuster, New York 1983.
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ON THE DUAL-CAREER-COUPLE PROBLEM IN PHYSICS
We are in an age of changing or vanishing gender-based divisions of labor, with more and more women working side by side with men as professionals in scientific research. One natural consequence of this is a substantial increase in the number of dual-research married couples. Since research productivity depends to a large extent upon specialization, and since the more specialized one's field of research the less likely a position in that specialization will be available in any specific geographical location, there is a chronic employment problem for many dual-research couples. It is a considerable irony that society can commit substantial resources to the training of young scientists, and then have those same scientists unable to work in science because the commitment of society ends abruptly with their training. Such problems are not unique to the physics community, but the problems in that community are currently highlighted and a cause of particular concern.
The following points are made by L. McNeil and M. Sher (Physics Today July 1999):
1) The authors conducted a survey via several branches of the American Physical Society, and received responses from 632 individuals who were members of dual-career couples. The purpose of the survey was to gather data on the extent of the dual-career problem in physics and consider possible solutions to the problem. Of the respondent group, 89 percent were physicists married to other scientists, and 45 percent were physicists married to other physicists. The authors queried physicists whose partners are scientists about their experiences in finding employment and about the kinds of positions they had accepted, and the published report consists primarily of anecdotal data. The primary goal of the study was to obtain information about possible approaches to the problem, and no attempt was made to use rigorous statistical sampling techniques or sophisticated quantitative analysis of the responses to the survey.
2) The authors report that in the 3 decades since 1966, the percentage of women earning PhDs in physics each year has grown from approximately 2 percent to approximately 13 percent. At present, women constitute only 6 percent of US physicists overall, but they make up approximately 13 percent of all physicists under the age of 31. Approximately half of all women physicists are married, compared to 74 percent of all male physicists.
3) The authors report that female physicists are far more likely to be married to physicists and other scientists than are male physicists. Thus, the dual-career-couple problem has a disproportionate effect on women. Although statistics are difficult to obtain, anecdotal evidence suggests that dual-career employment problems may cause some women to leave physics altogether.
4) As possible solutions to the problem, the authors suggest and discuss split positions, spousal hiring programs, alternative academic positions, and long-distance commuting.
5) The authors conclude: "As women represent a growing fraction of younger physicists, the number of new hires facing the two-body problem can be expected to increase. It is in the interests of institutions to take an active role in addressing these dual-career situations."
Physics Today http://www.physicstoday.org
ScienceWeek http://scienceweek.com
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